What Getting Divorced Taught Me

October 13, 2015

One of the things that I regret doing when I was going through my divorce was taking advice from everyone. This is what happened:

My divorce was dramatic. That was mostly my fault, as I chose to share it with more people than I probably should have. It didn’t help that the papers were served on me at work, but….yeah. Every time we had a fight about something I would pick up the phone or I would go to work and I would share the details of our conversation with pretty much anyone who would listen.

This of course led a lot of various people to give me all sorts of unsolicited advice. “He wants to do what? Oh no…you can’t let him…” And I would find myself second guessing myself and the decisions I had thought I had already made.

Anyways, when all was said and done I had made a big circus out of my divorce. There weren’t any clowns or elephants, but yeah, that’s what it felt like; a circus.

And then I got divorced.

These days, there are the two camps of people as far as all divorce related stuff goes: there are the people who continue to feed into the drama by saying “He did WHAT???” And then there are the people who nod, and then politely change the subject. I appreciate those people. They remind me of a few things:

What’s in the past, is in the past.

It’s more interesting to hear about the good things that are going on in my life.

There are a lot more better things to have a conversation about.

People still like me and want to have an engaging conversation with me; even if my ex-husband doesn’t.

It was really hard to let go of the drama but once I consciously did, I felt worlds better about everything.

Incidentally, now I am writing a book about my divorce…not my ex-husband, but my divorce. Recently I have been thinking a lot about life and the divorce and the life lessons I learned as a result. The biggest lesson I learned?

Trust yourself, and you’ll be okay.

Oh yeah, and if you really feel the need to get advice from someone, get a therapist. They give pretty good advice.